Overview
- The Madras High Court set aside the Enforcement Directorate’s 2020 ECIR against Rural Development Minister I Periyasamy in the housing plot allotment case.
- The bench said there can be no money-laundering probe without a surviving predicate offence, so there were no proceeds of crime to investigate.
- Chief Justice S A Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan delivered the order after earlier High Court and Supreme Court rulings had already quashed cases against several co-accused.
- The DVAC had filed a 2011 FIR alleging illegal allotment of Tamil Nadu Housing Board plots in Thiruvanmiyur to select beneficiaries, including retired IPS officer M S Jaffer Sait, his wife M Parvin, and R Durgashankar.
- The decision is a setback for the ED and a relief for the DMK leadership, arriving as political attention centers on election results.